Monday, April 23, 2018

Three Questions to Ask About Your Growth Strategy

Source: Pixabay

Who doesn't love top-line growth? With a surge in revenues, leaders can provide new opportunities for highly effective employees. Financial rewards for employees often rise as well. Not all growth is profitable though. Some growth can generate short term increases in profits, but damage the firm moving forward in serious ways. Here are three key questions you should ask about your company's growth strategy:

1. Are we compromising our awesome customer experience as we try to grow quickly or grow in new directions? Many companies find themselves disappointing long-time core customers when they seek to attract new consumers. Why? Wait times increase due to congestion, workers become overwhelmed with new obligations and offer less personal service to customers, and product proliferation creates confusion for customers and employees alike.

2. Are we spreading our resources too thinly across multiple initiatives and lines of business? By resources, I mean not only financial capital. Executives need to think about how they are allocating their people, as well as how they are allocating leadership attention across the organization.

3. Are we making our brand and our competitve positioning less distinctive in the marketplace? Sometimes, growth in new directions blurs customers' understanding of who you are and what you stand for in the industry. They used to know that you clearly stood for x, and that you didn't do y and z. They understood that you were the best at x in the industry. Now they aren't sure if you are the best at x, y, or z, and they aren't sure what your value proposition is.

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Michael Roberto

The Great Courses

About Me

I am the Trustee Professor of Management at Bryant University in Smithfield, RI. I joined the faculty after serving for six years on the faculty at Harvard Business School.

My research, teaching, and consulting focuses on leadership, with a particular emphasis on decision-making and teams. I have published two books based upon my research: Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes For An Answer (2nd edition to be released in May 2013), and Know What You Don't Know (2009).